


Worthy

by DarkHell616



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor - Fandom
Genre: Beard combing, Chubby Thor, Comfort, Drinking (mentioned), Friendship, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romantic if you squint, confidence issues, endgame thor, platonic, self hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkHell616/pseuds/DarkHell616
Summary: Everyone, even the great God of Thunder, needs a little reassurance sometimes.
Relationships: Thor/Reader
Kudos: 40





	Worthy

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at a Thor central thing, just something that's been in my head for a while and I needed to get out.

I grimaced as I walked inside.

The waft of stale alcohol washing over me as soon as I opened the door.

By this point you would have guessed that I would have adjusted to it, but I hadn’t and each time I came to visit my old friend it only got worse.

From the narrow hallway I could hear the TV and rolled my eyes, you would have thought that a Norse God would have more taste than to play Fortnite but here we are.

It was a sorry state of affairs, to see Thor reduced to the man he was now.

Seeing him suffer this whole time with guilt and denial filled me with sympathy for him and I wanted to do nothing but help him, but he would never accept help and would rather drown his sorrows with as much beer as possible to keep himself numb with intoxication.

PTSD had hit him hard and I wasn’t sure what I could do to help, so I simply decided to stay by his side through thick and thin.

Stepping into the room, I was mildly surprised to see him sat there alone, staring intently at the TV while wildly mashing at the buttons on the controller.

“Hey, no Korg or Miek today?”

Thor briefly glanced away from the screen and smiled widely.

“Hey! Nah, just me, they’re off doing something or other.”

“Something or other? You didn’t want to join them?”

It was a stupid question that I already knew the answer to, but I wanted to keep some form of normalcy between us.

Thor shot me another look, this one darker as if I had just suggested that he cut off a hand to feed a slug.

Rolling my eyes, I dropped the subject and went about my usual routine when I’d come over to visit.

This meant that I spent most of my time tidying up after him, disposing of wrappers and recycling what I could, all the best for New Asgard’s future, while he sat around and yelled at the screen while furiously bashing buttons and insulting someone’s ancestry.

Good times.

But if it meant helping to keep him on some kind of track, then I was happy to help in any way that I could.

So, I went about my usual tasks of picking up bottles, cans and packets to throw away while having brief conversations with Thor as he glared at the screen.

I also wiped down surfaces of dust, polished the ones that needed doing and cleared crumbs and the like off the floor.

It was never amazingly extensive, that seemed almost impossible to achieve in this tiny space, but as long as the area was clearer than it had been when I started then we were both content and comfortable enough to get by.

Once everything was cleared to a satisfying degree, I ran a hot bath then walked to the main room to stand beside him, watching the screen for a moment before turning to him.

“Come on, big guy,” I smiled, patting his shoulder, “it’s time to get washed up.”

“Just one more game,” he whined, looking up at me like a pleading child.

“No, one more game turns into five, I learned that the hard way last time and,” I leaned in, wrapping my fingers around the mouthpiece on his headset, “you smell like booze and week old cookies.”

Letting go of the microphone, I stepped back again and put my hands on my hips.

Typically, I wouldn’t force or coerce him into anything he didn’t want or was reluctant to do but this was something that would benefit us both and he usually appreciated it afterwards despite his initial reluctance.

Like much else, this had become a routine conversation of persuasion that he almost seemed to find comfort in.

“So come on, you can play more after, maybe I’ll even join you for a few rounds.”

Thor looked up at me with narrowed eyes before slowly smiling, pulling off the headset and untangling it from his hair.

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“I know,” I smiled, “you learn how to when stuck around your stubborn ass for as many years as I’ve been.”

He let out a long sigh, turning off the console before getting up and walking to the bathroom where a warm bath was already waiting for him.

“I’ll make us a proper meal to eat, okay?” I said, heading to the kitchen, “give me a call if you need someone to scrub your back.”

He gave me a thumbs up and then walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind himself.

Shaking my head, I smiled to myself while heading to the kitchen to rifle through the fridge to see what we had that I could whip up into something resembling a meal.

By the time Thor had crawled out of the bath, I had found enough things to scrape together a decent fish meal that should get us both by for a while.

A short while after hearing the water running through the pipes, the door opened and Thor stepped out in a clean pair of pyjama bottoms but still sans of any shirt.

“Okay,” I smiled, putting my hands on my hips as my eyes slowly scanned over him, “we’ve got a little bit to wait for the fish to be done.”

My eyes lifted again and landed on his beard and then his tangled hair.

“While we wait for it to cook, how about I comb the leftover cheese dust out of your beard?”

Thor smiled and gave me a nod.

“You are quite good at that.”

“Well, you’ve given me plenty of practice.”

I grabbed the comb from the drawer I kept it in and walked over to him.

In our typical routine, I delicately begin to untangle the knots in his beard as we stand in a serene silence, smiling at one another when our eyes would meet for brief seconds.

It was a moment of calmness, a bonding experience for both of us.

Though this time, Thor stared at the wall above my head with an expression of thought and furrowed eyebrows, after a minute or two, he broke our quiet.

“Do you think I’m still worthy?”

I froze in my brushing and let out a quiet huff of a laugh, to have made a sound any louder felt like it would have broken the air that had fallen around us.

“Of course I do, why wouldn’t you be?”

“Why would I be?” He near scoffed, rolling his eyes a little, though more as if to stem off tears than to have an attitude. “Look at me, I lost my hammer, my home, I couldn’t….I couldn’t kill….”

“Thor,” I said softly, looking up at him.

“I couldn’t save my own brother, I couldn’t even avenge him or anyone else.”

Now tears had managed to brim his eyes, causing them to start going red as he looked anywhere but at me.

“What use am I?”

“You’re full of uses, you just don’t seem to realize it anymore.”

“Then why do I feel like this? So useless.”

“Because you suffered immensely, everyone lost something and everyone copes in different ways, you’re no lesser for getting by the best you can.”

“My best hardly seems to be working.”

“Perhaps it will and perhaps it won’t in time, if it doesn’t then you can find another way.”

“Mjolnir would never be wielded by me in this state.”

“Mjolnir wouldn’t judge you as harshly as you judge yourself.”

We both stared at one another, neither of us daring to utter another word.

Eventually, I smiled and gently cupped his jaw, running my thumb over the scar beneath his eye.

“You underestimate yourself greatly, Thor, you’ll see.”

He blinked slowly, the water in his eyes lessening but not leaving fully.

“And if I don’t?”

I shrugged a little and went back my brushing, running my fingers through the hairs after combing them.

“Then I guess we shall continue this little dance of ours until you do.”


End file.
